Habs’ Subban comfortable on playoff stage

Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien calls defenceman P.K. Subban “a gamer, a guy who will bring his game to another level when the game will count.”

Photograph by: Charles Krupa, AP

BOSTON — The predictable P.K. Subban question was coming to Michel Therrien during his pregame media briefing Wednesday, and the reply would have devastated those who insist the Canadiens head coach never has a good word to say about his superstar defenceman.

“P.K. Subban has been phenomenal since the playoffs started, even to the end of the season,” Therrien said. “He’s a gamer, he’s a guy who will bring his game to another level when the game will count. He’s been a leader on the ice, definitely, for our club.”

In a few hours, Subban would skate into his 10th NHL elimination game, the fourth sudden-death Game 7 in which he’s played.

When you’re larger than life, you need a gigantic stage on which to perform. And so it was that Subban arrived in the NHL playoff auditorium on the morning of April 26, 2010, summoned almost frantically to the Canadiens from the American Hockey League’s Hamilton Bulldogs.

That was three dozen post-season games ago.

“I didn’t expect to get called up at all,” Subban would say that night. “My focus less than 24 hours ago was to get out of the first (playoff) round and move on to the second (with the Bulldogs).”

The 20-year-old was called up to fill in for veteran defenceman Jaroslav Spacek, who was laid low by a virus. Subban played 10:02 that night in his team’s 4-1 win over Washington in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference quarter-final. The Canadiens evened the series at 3-3 with the Capitals, Subban recording two hits and three blocked shots.

He had opened many eyes in his first professional season, having scored 18 goals and added 35 assists in 77 AHL games, racking up a stunning plus-46 ranking.

Following a Sunday game in Hamilton, Subban was told to report to the office of then-Bulldogs head coach Guy Boucher.

“I was told it was really important and I said: ‘Am I in trouble?’ ” Subban said. “They said I wasn’t and (Boucher) told me I was being called up and just to keep my game simple.”

The Canadiens were unable to get him on a midnight flight to Montreal, so Subban had a 5:30 a.m. wake-up call on Monday from his father to get to the airport, arriving in the city only hours before his maiden playoff game.

It would be a memorable performance by a player with only 40 minutes and 10 seconds of NHL experience, having made his debut in back-to-back games against Philadelphia just before the Vancouver Olympic break.

Subban would be part of the Canadiens’ victorious lineup in Washington two nights later, then would take on a much greater role for the next dozen games, beginning with the opener of the Eastern semifinal vs. Pittsburgh when star defenceman Andrei Markov went down with a shredded knee.

Subban hadn’t been to Washington before his trip for Game 7, and he considered what awaited him in the nation’s capital.

“Who knows?” he asked with a face-wide grin. “Maybe Obama will show up.”

Sadly, U.S. president Barack Obama was otherwise occupied, but vice-president Joe Biden was in the house to see Subban’s second NHL playoff game, the elimination of the Capitals and, in some ways, the wonderful emergence of the young man who has become one of hockey’s elite defencemen.

Subban played 77 games for the Canadiens the next season, finishing sixth in voting for the Calder Trophy awarded to the league’s outstanding rookie. He’s now played 284 regular-season games, winning the Norris last season as the NHL’s best defenceman, and 36 more games in the playoffs, including 11 this season counting Wednesday’s decisive Game 7 against the Boston Bruins.

The last time Subban faced elimination at the hands of the Bruins was on April 27, 2011, at TD Garden, the Canadiens losing in overtime after he had sent the game into extra time by scoring the equalizer with less than two minutes to play in regulation.

“Yeah, I wanted to do it again. I wanted to do it again the next shift,” Subban said of his game-tying one-timer. “It was great to push it to overtime, but we didn’t get the job done.

“I wanted to put another dagger in, but I didn’t get my opportunity.

“I’m sure I’ll get my opportunity this time,” he added optimistically of Game 7 in this series. “It’s my job to make sure it counts.

“I remember losing (in 2011). I thought that we had an opportunity to win. I remember going into overtime and them getting a bounce. A shot that bounces through a guy’s leg, hits his leg and goes in — that can be the difference in Game 7.

“This is going to be the biggest game of the year for us. For some guys, the biggest games of their career so far. It’s fun. You’ve got to enjoy it. This is where legends are made.

“You have to enjoy it,” Subban said of sudden-death in the playoffs. “I don’t think I’ve played a game in this league nervous and I’m not going to start to do that now.

“It’s going to be great. I can’t wait for the crowd, the noise, the energy in the building. I can’t wait to take that all away from them.”

The post-season amplifies everything, from noise of the fans to Subban’s delicious quotes to the tiniest miscue by a player that can turn the tide of a game and even change the outcome.

“That’s what playoffs is all about, man,” Subban said immediately after Game 6, looking forward to stepping back into the lion’s den called TD Garden.

“I hope their crowd is louder than in here (at the Bell Centre). I hope it gets nasty, I hope it gets dirty because at the end of the game when you’re shaking hands, whoever wins, that’s what the feeling’s all about — it’s knowing that you battled, you went through a war and you know what? We’re going to be at the end there standing tall.”

Canadiens head coach Michel Therrien calls defenceman P.K. Subban “a gamer, a guy who will bring his game to another level when the game will count.”

Photograph by: Charles Krupa, AP

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